BRUSSELS: NATO on Monday confirmed that North Korean troops have been sent to help Russia in its almost three-year war against Ukraine and said some have already been deployed in Russia’s Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
“Today, I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters.
Rutte said the move represents “a significant escalation” in North Korea’s involvement in the conflict and marks “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”
Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army. It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power dynamics. He sought to build a counterbalance to Western influence with a summit of BRICS countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week. He has sought direct help for the war from Iran, which has supplied drones, and North Korea, which has shipped large amounts of ammunition, according to Western governments.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shrugged off Rutte’s comments and noted that Pyongyang and Moscow signed a joint security pact last June. He stopped short of confirming North Korean soldiers were in Russia.
Lavrov claimed that Western military instructors already have been covertly deployed to Ukraine to help its military use long-range weapons provided by Western partners.
“Western military personnel long have been working in Ukraine,” Lavrov said after a meeting with the Kuwaiti foreign minister in Moscow.
Ukraine, whose defenses are under severe Russian pressure in its eastern Donetsk region, could get more bleak news from next week’s US presidential election. A Donald Trump victory could see key US military help dwindle.
In Moscow, the Defense Ministry announced Monday that Russian troops have captured the Donetsk village of Tsukuryne — the latest settlement to succumb to the slow-moving Russian onslaught.
Rutte spoke in Brussels after a high-level South Korean delegation, including top intelligence and military officials as well as senior diplomats, briefed the alliance’s 32 national ambassadors at NATO headquarters.
Rutte said NATO is “actively consulting within the alliance, with Ukraine, and with our Indo-Pacific partners,” on developments. He said he was due to talk soon with South Korea’s president and Ukraine’s defense minister.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely,” he said. He did not take questions after the statement.
The South Koreans showed no evidence of North Korean troops in Kursk, according to European officials who were present for the 90-minute exchange and spoke to The Associated Press about the security briefing on condition of anonymity.
It’s unclear how or when NATO allies might respond to the North Korean involvement. They could, for example, lift restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied weapons for long-range strikes on Russian soil.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing intelligence reports, claimed last Friday that North Korean troops would be on the battlefield within days.
He previously said his government had information that some 10,000 troops from North Korea were being readied to join Russian forces fighting against his country.
Days before Zelensky spoke, American and South Korean officials said there was evidence North Korea had dispatched troops to Russia.
The US said around 3,000 North Korean troops had been deployed to Russia for training.
NATO confirms that North Korea has sent troops to join Russia’s war in Ukraine
NATO confirms that North Korea has sent troops to join Russia’s war in Ukraine
Two were killed in a knife attack in Germany and a suspect has been detained, police say
- Police said they did not immediately know the motive for the attack
- Train services in the town were temporarily interrupted
BERLIN: Two people, including a child, were killed and two others were severely injured in a stabbing attack in Bavaria on Wednesday, German police said.
Police said a suspect was detained in the knife attack, which occurred in a park in the southern German town of Aschaffenburg.
Police said they did not immediately know the motive for the attack, but that it was not terrorism.
Train services in the town were temporarily interrupted as the suspect tried to flee along the tracks, German news agency dpa reported. However, he was quickly detained, police wrote on the social media platform X.
Police asked possible witnesses to come forward. They did not release any details about the identities of the victims or the suspect.
Macron says Europe must protect sovereignty in face of Trump’s return
- Macron made the remarks at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
PARIS: More than ever, Europeans, including France and Germany, must protect their sovereignty in the face of the return of US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.
He made the remarks at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris, adding that it was important to support the automobile, steel, chemical sectors, among others.
“After the inauguration of a new administration in the United States, it is necessary more than ever for Europeans and for our two countries to play their role of consolidating a united, strong and sovereign Europe,” Macron said.
Israel says it will maintain control of Gaza-Egypt crossing
- The statement said European Union monitors would supervise the crossing, which will be surrounded by Israeli troops
- Israel also will approve the movement of all people and goods
RAFAH: Israel said it will maintain control of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas.
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday denied reports that the Palestinian Authority would control the crossing.
The truce, now in its fourth day, is supposed to bring calm to the war-battered Gaza for at least six weeks and see 33 Hamas-held hostages released in return for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The statement said European Union monitors would supervise the crossing, which will be surrounded by Israeli troops. Israel also will approve the movement of all people and goods.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages still remain in Gaza, after the rest were released, rescued, or their bodies were recovered.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities but do not say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Algeria and US sign MoU on military cooperation, Algeria defense ministry says
- Defense ministry said the MoU focuses on military cooperation
ALGIERS: Algeria signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States on Wednesday that focuses on military cooperation, its defense ministry said in a statement.
The MoU was signed during a meeting between Deputy Defense Minister Said Chengriha and Michael Langley, commander of the US Africa Command, the ministry added.
Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province launches cash cards for minorities
- Punjab government to provide $37.65 per family every quarter to minorities under ‘Minority Card’
- Pakistan’s minorities have suffered attacks from religiously motivated militants in the recent years
ISLAMABAD: The chief minister of Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, Maryam Nawaz, launched cash cards for minorities on Wednesday, stressing the importance of undertaking measures to ensure they are not marginalized in the country.
Nawaz announced the ‘Minority Card’ in October last year during the Hindu festival of Diwali. Through the card, the provincial government will provide Rs10,500 [$37.65] per family every quarter to Sikhs, Christians, Hindus and other minorities residing in Punjab.
The chief minister had said that 50,000 individuals from minority communities in Punjab would receive the card during the first phase of its launch. She had said that the provincial government would increase both the number of beneficiaries to 75,000 and the per quarter funds as well.
“I am very happy that that for the first time in Pakistan and Punjab’s history we have launched the minority card,” Nawaz said at the launching ceremony of the card.
She thanked Punjab Minority Affairs Minister Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora and the Bank of Punjab for helping the provincial government in “making and implementing” the card.
Emphasizing that minorities were like the “crown on her head,” Sharif said the true identity of minorities was not non-Muslims but “true Pakistanis.” She distributed minority cards among participants at the ceremony.
Pakistani minorities have often suffered attacks at the hands of religiously motivated militants and hard-liners. There have been dozens of instances of mob violence against religious minorities in the South Asian nation in recent years, including an attack on Christians in Punjab’s Jaranwala town in August 2023. An angry mob had torched churches, homes and businesses targeting the Christian community there over blasphemy allegations.
In the country’s southern Sindh province, Hindus have frequently complained about forced conversions, particularly of young girls, and attacks on temples.
Over 96 percent of Pakistan’s population is Muslim, according to the population census of 2023, with the remaining four percent comprising 5.2 million Hindus, 3.3 million Christians, 15,992 Sikhs and others.